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Wednesday, May 9, 2012

I was going to write about rejection letters seeing that on Monday I received my first ever one. It felt like a rite of passage and to be honest it wasn't all that painful. In fact, it was exciting to feel like a real member of the writing community. An odd reaction from what I understood to be a painful thing for a newbie to see, but I owe it to all my stabby friends not holding back punches to both make me a better writer but to also realize that my work is not perfect and will never be. Understanding that I am not god's gift to the writing world is one of the things that made this a positive experience.

And to further work my way through the disappointment, I even sent my story (An expansion of "The Townhome" that I turned into a short story) to 4 other places.

But the neat thing was that on Tuesday, the very day after my first rejection, "The Townhome" was accepted by Larks Literary Magazine. It's not exactly The New Yorker, but I'm excited none the less. Still, I'm left wondering if I should have set my sights higher and started with the Glimmer Trains, New Yorker, etc. and worked my way down to the lesser known markets.

However I was quite limited in where I could send that particular story because it was in my mind a "reprint" in that it was the same story I had previously published here, just expanded and refined. (part of the reason I've stopped posting my flash stories regularly) So when you take out the markets that do not accept reprints, I had lost those top tier publications.

What is probably unfortunate in my painless submission process is that I will be even more restrictive now in when I decide to post a story up here on my blog. I want to be able to go after those top tier markets and work my way down.

I had thought about only putting stories up on my blog that I did not want to submit anywhere, but in that case I would be watering down the writing I put up here. So I've decided that I will just have to publish the occasional story here and recognizable that it probably won't be able to be sent anywhere major and bite that bullet, because you all are part of the reason I've grown as much as I have.

I will try to do more of the reviews that I had gotten into writing as well as perhaps even getting back to selecting a #FridayFlash of the month as I'm still reading the great work the community is putting out each week. When when I'm feeling teacherly, I'll spout out my writing advice columns. But on the whole, there will be a significant decrease in the fiction that I put out here on my blog. Nevertheless, thank you all again.

So I guess this would have to be a celebration post encompassing a couple pretty exciting milestones in my writing career. Still, there are some good learning moments for me in this whole process and I look forward to putting it all to good use in the future.

5
comments:

Sorry about the rejection letter but congratulations on the mag. acceptance.

As for here it would be a shame not to see you stories, you know you could right flash for here and write specifically for submissions the two don't have to be the same that way you can kill two birds with one stone, your best flash for your blog ad your best short stories for submission. ^_^ Anyway good luck with whatever you choose.

Congratulations on the publication, Michael. I recommend starting at the top, at least at the top of whatever Duotrope lists as reprint-friendly markets in the pro- and semi-pro zones. But any publication can be good for the spirits.

Thanks for the comments. Don't worry Helen, like I said I will still be publishing some flash here, just not as much. (There are some good flash markets as well as short story markets)

And John, yea I had done that exact search on duotrop and sent it to the few paying markets that accepted reprints. They had my story for about a month when I got my first rejection letter and I got excited to send it back out. (to non-paying markets)

Overall I wish I would have given the others more time, but live and learn.

What is #stabbylove? It's a Twitter hashtag where writers who aren't afraid to check their egos at the door and accept real, honest feedback on their work to make it as polished as possible, even if that feedback is 'stabby.'